


Where The Coldest Winds Blow

by SaintEpithet



Series: Lovecraft meets Westeros - Dark Corners of the Known World [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Arctic Horror, Cannibalism (Implied), Don't copy to another site, Gen, Horror, Insanity, Lands of Always Winter (ASoIaF), Lovecraftian, Lovecraftian Monster(s), M-rated for implied Cannibalism, Madness, POV First Person, Sea Travel, Shivering Sea (ASoIaF), Skagos, Survival, Unseen Westeros, Valley of Thenn, Wilderness Survival, World of Ice and Fire, non-graphic cannibalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-10 23:38:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18418274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaintEpithet/pseuds/SaintEpithet
Summary: A crew of Skagosi raiders in pursuit of an enemy ship land on the shores of a frozen waste. Driven inland in search of provisions, the sailors find themselves at the mercy of the elements, the limits of the human body, and a creeping madness that hints at lurking dangers beyond the ken of mortal men.





	1. Act I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RuffedLemur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RuffedLemur/gifts).



> So I saw this prompt list "Stages of a Story" and though it was probably not meant to write an actual story... I felt challenged. This is the result. Admittedly, I stopped following the prompt stages at some point because it became too repetitive and my plot had already taken shape, but I still stuck to the daily word count. The structure is therefore a bit strange, it's "acts" rather than chapters. It was written as a oneshot, I only split it to spare mobile readers from too much scrolling.
> 
> Rating: The guidelines demand M for any mention of cannibalism. It's not gory/graphic.

_From stone we came, and with the strength of giants we tamed the Shivering Sea. For thousands of years we have ruled the islands of Skagos, never feared the treacheous currents that wash around the austere coasts of our home. The peoples of the mainland tremble before the might of winter. They hide within their staggering castles, behind the cyclopean Wall they built to fend off the cold. The stoneborn have never cowered in fear. We conquered winter, seized it, made its strength our own. The Northmen just barely survive. We have adapted, we thrive where the coldest winds blow._

 

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The planks of the ship groaned like an old man who had grown too weak and too tired to lift himself out of his chair. A cold gale rattled the stiff bones, bashed half-frozen ropes against the mast and the rail. Above us the sky stretched out endlessly in bleak shades of grey, stained with scattered clouds in the distance like the worthless remnants of a battlefield long scavenged and abandoned. Underneath us lay the unforgiving, black depths of the Shivering Sea, cold enough in autumn to freeze a man to death before he could drown.

It had been summer when we left Driftwood Hall, but compared to the forsaken part of the world we had entered it was always summer farther south. It had been summer when we navigated the icy currents around the island of Skane, and it had been summer in the bay of Hardhome where we took in supplies. Light snow had fallen while we cut wood outside the charred ruins, but it didn't linger. Except for a thin, white blanket on top of the cliff, the snow melted away in mere moments after touching the ground.

Now the bountiful fishing grounds, the mild climate and Hardhome's ruins were things of the past. The winds had carried us into the domain of autumn, and at our destination winter eternally ruled. Our days were pale and short-lived out here and each night grew longer and colder the farther we sailed along the austere, northern coastline. At times it felt as if we were the only living beings in the world, lost in a sea of eerie monotony and cold desolation. Some days we wondered if time had frozen, had made us part of the unchanging landscape, just another detail in a painting no man would ever see.

But we were not alone out here and the prey we were stalking was unaware of our presence. We had last spotted their sails eight days ago, a blood-red dot on the grey northern horizon. There was no need to track them, we didn't have to cling to their tails. We knew where the ship from the Free Cities was going. A settlement by the mouth of the Nameless River, a sparsely forested area north of the Valley of Thenn. Maybe the slavers we followed knew who had made this remote place their home, whether these people were refugees of tribal warfare or outcasts that had been condemned to such isolation by their own clan. We didn't know and if the slavers did, they cared very little. In this regard hunter and prey were of the same mind. The next winter would come for both of us. They wanted rare merchandise to auction off in the Free Cities, we wanted the same to fill our pantries and appease our gods. The only difference was our perception of quantity, in a way. The slavers considered the wildlings their goods. Our cargo hold had room for both the wildlings and their captors.

 

Captain Stane had left the bridge to me in the morning of what would probably be yet another dull day. It didn't make any difference whether the crew reported to him or the first mate. Nothing that required our attention had occured since our departure from Hardhome, save for a false alert from the crow's nest, three days ago. Our crew was well attuned, the men hardly needed instructions to carry out their daily routine. The one exception from that rule was Skello, a shipboy so hopelessly unsuited for life at sea that it didn't matter who gave him orders.

"Why are we calling them 'the Tyroshi'?"

It was Skello's first voyage and by now the crew had grown weary of answering his increasingly dumb questions. The lad had an uncanny interest in meaningless things, yet his ability to pay attention vanished completely whenever he was supposed to listen and learn.

"Shut your trap and fasten the ropes," Urmand barked back. "Who cares what we're calling them?" Captain Stane had assigned him the daunting task of teaching Skello how to replace brittle parts of the rigging after Urmand had gotten into a fight with his bunkmate two nights ago. Though the man had almost lost his right eye, the punishment struck me as harsh. Skello's impertinence and incessant chatter brought better men than Urmand to the brink of madness, and he wasn't known for his placid temper to begin with. "It will teach him a lesson in patience," the captain had said, but I couldn't help wondering if he secretly hoped Urmand would not live up to this challenge.

"We don't know if they're from Tyrosh," Skello noted with a smug grin on his face. "They could as well be from Braavos, Lorath or Myr."

Urmand's stern glare wiped the grin away in an instant. "There's no slave trade in Braavos, you dolt." He threw a coil of rope at Skello and though he caught it, the weight and force almost toppled the tall, lanky lad over. "It's always Tyroshi," Urmand added. "Never caught anyone else trying to poach in our waters. Maybe it just means that everyone else is smarter than them, I don't know, but it doesn't matter if the ship came from Lorath or Myr or the fabled City of the Winged Men. I'll still call them 'Tyroshi' because that's what their lack of wit makes them."

Urmand showed more restraint than anyone had expected. Some crewmen had wagered when he'd throw Skello into the sea and I wouldn't have minded if he had made an attempt either. Though it would have been my duty to step in, it would at least have provided a diversion from the monotony of our journey.

"Master Ture!" Hearing Sige call my name from the crow's nest jolted me up from my thoughts and I hurried to the rail to see what our lookout had discovered. "There's something over there! By the foot of the rocky hill near the coast!"

My eyes searched the sparse forest until they found the hill Sige pointed out. There was something indeed on the snowy shore, though it was hard to make out without a far-eye. "Let me see it!" I yelled up to the crow's nest, then went down the stairs to the main deck.

"Looks like an abandoned camp," Sige said when he joined me by the rail and handed over the far-eye. "Can't say if it was made by wildlings or the Tyroshi though."

The brass of the far-eye was cold as ice in my hands, I could feel the chill even through the gloves, and I was careful to not let it touch my bare skin when I peered through it. Trees had been cut near the rocky hill, stones had been arranged in a circle, and a few steps away from this firepit were three charred piles, each the size of a man.

"It's not a camp," I gave back after studying the site for a moment. "Those are pyres, different from the ones made by wildlings. Looks like the Tyroshi went ashore to burn their dead." I returned the far-eye to Sige and waved Skello over. "Get the captain and tell Odvarr to cast anchor," I told him and for once in his life the halfwit hurried away without questioning his orders.

"Not that I mind the diversion," Sige began, already halfway back up the mast. ""But why do we bother with three piles of ashes?"

"Take a closer look," I replied. "The bodies were wrapped in black cloths, makes it look like they burned completely. There might be enough left of them to determine what killed them. If there's a disease on the Tyroshi ship we need to know it. Our entire stock could be infested and worthless."

 

Captain Stane emerged from the hatch on the main deck, followed by Skello and a walking bundle of ragtag furs. The captain's long, greying hair was a tousled mess, suggesting he had been sleeping just moments ago, but the prospect of a futile mission had jolted him wide awake. "You sure it's not wildlings?" he asked as he strode across the deck toward my position. I nodded and was about to reply, but the captain had already pulled out his far-eye to see for himself. "Come on, be wildlings, you charred bastards," he muttered into his beard while searching the coastline.

The pile of furs, an indistinguishable mishmash of foxes, otters and squirrels, slowly came closer and joined us by the rail. Zolya didn't sail with us often, there was rarely need for a herbalist out at sea. However, this hunt required his expertise. The voyage led us farther from Skagos than usual, the larger spoils we expected were well worth the risk. It wasn't seasickness or malnourishment we worried about, it was a cautionary tale from the past.

Raiders had once captured a galley from the Free Cities when both ships had been trapped in the ice around Skane. Their spoils easily provided enough supplies, and the raiders survived on the uninhabited island seemingly unscathed. But when spring came and they returned home to Skagos, it soon became clear that they were not the same men they had been upon their departure. They didn't recognize friends or kin, spoke in strange tongues, some disappeared into the mountains and forests and were never heard from again. The remains of a sailor were recovered from their ship, and it turned out the Essosi crew had been infested with an illness unknown to the Stoneborn. It was determined that this disease had been the cause of the madness our men had returned with. Zolya was with to examine our prey for signs of this illness, to ensure we would not meet the same gruesome fate as the raiders.

"Cursed bastards, they're Tyroshi," Captain Stane confirmed what I already knew. He put the far-eye back under his coat and gestured to Skello. "Lower the dinghy," he grunted, then turned to Zolya and me. "Take Demyan and Runar along, they can gather the timber the Tyroshi left behind." A sigh followed as he gazed back to the shore. "Those bastards better froze to death. I'd hate to have come the long way for naught."

 

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It was colder in the dinghy than it had been on the ship, the icy water was only an arm's length away from us now. Each stroke of the oars threw sea spray up in the air and into our faces, and small floes drifted around us, gone astray from the shallow water of the frozen shore.

However, the harsh climate and desolation worked in our favor. Out here the Haunted Forest was stalked by lonesome beasts that would feast upon any being, dead or alive. But not even they had discovered this meager meal, and the freezing air had preserved the corpses better than we had expected. No insects infested the dead body and rot had not set in.

Still, two of them had been consumed by the flames the way the Tyroshi had intended. Only brittle, black bones were left of them, shrouded in rags of soot-stained linen. The third body, however, was in better condition. When Zolya removed the wraps, he found an arm, the shoulders and the head to be untouched by the fire. If there had been any doubts about the man's origin, they would have been settled by what we saw. The remains of his clothes, though stained and tattered, were made from finer fabrics than any wildling would have possessed in his life.

An animal attack, I thought when I saw the long rips running down the sleeve. Perhaps the Tyroshi had been trying to hunt. Utterly unfamiliar with the beasts that roamed these cold forests, they would have been easy prey to any of them. Zolya took it as a good sign as well. He instructed me to search for scratches on the exposed bones of the chest and ribcage while he turned his attention to the head. The dead man had been blindfolded, which we assumed to be part of a burial rite practiced in Tyrosh. Wildlings had no such customs as far as we knew, but the peoples of the Free Cities did all sorts of strange things. They wore strange attire, they spoke in strange tongues, they worshiped strange gods, and we cared little for their traditions.

"Cut this off." Zolya pointed to the blindfold. "It was likely an animal attack that killed them, but we have to be sure."

I know all too well what he meant by that. Wide open eyes had been a sign of the madness. The survivors stricken with it after their return from Skane had been unable to close them even in death. They had stared through people, through walls, through time and space, to something beyond the horizon in an unknown distance.

I pulled out my dagger and carefully cut through the soot-stained fabric. The face appeared to be uninjured, but I didn't want to cause any damage that would make the final verdict less clear. When Zolya pulled away the ends of the blindfold, both he and I stared in disbelief and confusion.

Timber clattered near the pyre, then I heard Runar's voice next to me, husky and haunted. "Where are his eyes?" I heard him ask and I shuddered. "Where are the bastard's fucking eyes?"

 

For what felt like a lifetime there was only silence, all I heard was the wind and the rushing of waves.

"Birds," Zolya then firmly stated. "It might be the reason they concealed the eyes." He gazed up to the grey sky above the snow-crowned trees further inland. "Many birds native to these lands feed on carrion. Crows in particular are known to have a taste for the eyes." He gestured for my dagger and I gave it to him. Zolya first poked the empty sockets, then parted the dead lips with the tip of the blade. "No tongue either," he noted, apparently relieved at the gruesome discovery. "Birds prefer the soft tissue," he added. "Eyes, tongues, lips, the inside of the nose." He returned the dagger and walked a few steps away, inspecting the place where the Tyroshi had cut shrubs and trees. "They probably left the dead by the fire," Zolya continued after some consideration. "Didn't pay attention to hungry birds while they gathered wood for the pyres."

"Are there signs of the disease on the body?" I asked. Zolya's theory as to what had happened was sound, but there was too much at stake to rush to conclusions.

He returned to the pyre and the corpse resting on it, lifted the intact arm and appraisingly regarded the fingers. "No discoloration of the skin, no signs of a fungal infestation," he said. "The corpse recovered from Skane was described as having a purple tint in the records, as well as patches of black surrounding strange fungal growths." He waved to Runar, Demyan and the pile of timber they had gathered. "These men were most likely attacked by a beast."

I took one last look at the dead Tyroshi before me, then I slowly nodded and followed Zolya to the dinghy. "Perhaps Utir can tell us what kind of creatures it was," I said. "Fish are scarce in these waters and we're low on supplies. I'd rather know what dangers await us before we send out a hunting party."

 

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Utir took a step back and beheld the rack as if he was preparing the armory for the visit of a strict commander and had to make sure every spear, bow and sword was arranged perfectly in its designated place on the wall. "Direwolf pup," he grunted without hesitation. "Mature one would have torn them apart in a heartbeat, there wouldn't be anything left to burn." He brushed some copper strands out of his face and strode over to Zolya and me, waiting by the door. "Could be there's a snow bear somewhere in the forest, but those beasts rarely venture this close to the coast."

"Perhaps we should turn our thoughts back to fishing," Zolya said. "The little game we can hope to find in this forest does not seem worth the risk."

"Risk?" Utir let out a humorless laughter. "There's no risk, not if you know what you're doing."

"I'll tell Sige to look out for lakes, streams and caverns," I gave back. "Once he spots a promising place, we'll send out a party." I turned to leave, but paused when Zolya kept glaring me at as if he questioned my wits. "We're not Tyroshi," I reminded him. "Game may be scarce in these woods, but we won't need a lot. Some hares or snow shrykes will be enough to see us fed until we reach the Nameless River."

 

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Zolya removed his hood and closed the ready room's door behind him. Snow fell from the furs and left a trace of small puddles as came over to the table where I sat with Captain Stane and studied our charts. "You can't possibly send out hunters in these conditions," Zolya said when he reached us and it sounded like an accusation, as if he blamed us for the weather.

We had predicted a drop in temperature, but the onset of heavy snowfall and strong westwind had caught us by surprise in the night. It only got worse after daybreak. The winds became more erratic by the hour and we could barely make out the coast through the living curtains of dense snow and hail. Our charts placed a hillscape two days ahead of us, but it would be difficult to anchor near the cliffs of the ragged shore. If we'd get there at all. Navigation was a gamble, only the mercy of the gods had kept us on course so far.

"We'll ration the food," Captain Stane calmy replied. "For now." He tore his gaze off the chart and looked up to Zolya. "But unless the storm ceases within a day or two, we won't have a choice. We're one week away from the Nameless River, even if the weather won't change. The Tyroshi might be brazen halfwits, but they won't do us the favor and try to brave this storm. They'll stay where they are. If we want their supplies we'll have to go there and get them." He nodded to the chart on the table. "And we're not going to make it there in time, not with a hungry, storm-tossed crew. The caverns in these hills will be our last chance to find game and ward off starvation."


	2. Act II

"What if the snowstorm ceases in our absence? What if the ship gets free from the ice?" Skello missed when he tried to throw a bag onto the stacked dinghy, but instead of walking over to pick it up he just stood there and waited for a reply.

Urmand glared at the bag, half-sunken in the snow next to the dinghy. The carpenters had attached planks under the boat and turned it into a makeshift sleigh to transport our supplies over land. "That's why we're leaving a skeleton crew behind," he grunted. "I wouldn't hold my breath though. Now pick that up and shut your trap."

Skello grabbed the bag, but he didn't shut up. "Why can't I stay with the ship?" he asked. "Looks sturdy enough to me, I doubt the ice floes can really crush it."

Captain Stane had given the order to abandon ship on the fourth day of the storm, a last resort as the situation had gotten worse than expected. Every sailor with half a brain knew the danger was very real, therefore the captain and I had changed our plans after a long night of deliberation. We'd try to reach the Nameless River by land. It gave Utir and his men a chance to hunt further inland, a welcome prospect after the meager meals we had cooked from rats. All things considered, it was still a gamble. We couldn't be certain the Tyroshi had really decided to wait out the storm by the mouth of the Nameless River, but we silently prayed to the gods that they did. Seizing their ship, with or without its cargo, was our best hope for survival, even more so should our own vessel yield to the ice.

"Should the ship get unstuck it needs a capable crew," I told Skello. "You're not capable. You'd only be in their way if they try to follow us up the shore."

Skello was about to protest, but Urmand was faster. "Even the skinny rats in the cargo hold are more useful than you. Got more meat on their bones, they make better provisions."

I didn't like the prospect of a long march through the snow any more than the crew or the captain, but I knew we had made the right decision. The ship, sturdy yet nimble, had served us well for many years and it was so much more than a mere vessel to us sailors. We were leaving a friend behind, our provider, our shelter, and we didn't consider for even a moment that we would never see it again. The storm would cease soon, we kept telling ourselves, and we'd find the ship waiting for us on the way back.

I don't know whether the captain truly believed it or only paid lip service to inspire the men. Either way, his confidence never wavered. Most of the crew, myself included, had sailed under Captain Stane, had been in tight spots with him before. We had always come out as the victors, over man, beast and forces of nature alike. It would take more than a bad storm to shatter our faith in our leader, much more.

 

When we made camp in the evening Utir went out with his hunters, advancing toward the hillscape ahead. Hares and snow foxes might have sought shelter there from the harsh weather, they'd be easy prey in the caverns, Utir said. If he was right the spoils of the hunt would await us once we caught up with his group the next day.

"We should have taken the roasted Tyroshi with us." Runar threw another piece of wood into the fire pit, then sat down next to me. "Now the beast that killed him can feast while we have to make do with moldy onions and rats."

"We'll have our own feast soon enough," Captain Stane firmly gave back. "We're making good headway on land. Once we reach the Nameless River there'll be plenty of food to fill our stomachs; wildlings, Tyroshi, hares, foxes and fish." He stirred the watery stew Runar had cooked up over the fire and dismissively wrinkled his nose. "Getting there won't be easy, but it will be worth it nonetheless."

"There was hardly enough left of the corpse to fed even a handful of men." Zolya pulled his assortment of furs tighter together, but he didn't sit down and kept pacing around near the fire. "And we don't know how long he's been on the pyre. The Tyroshi surely neither salt nor pickle their dead. Rotten onions may taste putrid, but there's no harm in their consumption. The same can't be said about livestock that fell victim to an animal attack."

"You said yourself that there were no signs of the madness." Runar scooped some of the stew with his metal mug, sloshed it around and glared at the sludgy pieces of rat meat as if he could will them to transform into a more passable meal.

"I said there were no signs of the madness from Skane," Zolya corrected with an air of importance. "As far as we know it's a disease that befalls men, not wild beasts. But there are other afflictions they can carry and an infection of their victim would be invisible to the eye until it's too late."

Runar grimaced as he took a swig from his mug and his glare now followed Zolya around the fire. "What do you know about the beasts found out here?" he gave back. "There hasn't been large game on your island for hundreds of years. You probably couldn't tell a moose from a turkey!"

Though I didn't doubt our herbalist's expertise in medicine, I had to admit that Runar raised a good point. Zolya came from the eastern island of Skagos and had only lived on the mainland for a few years. Where he had spent most of his life, large game had been hunted to extinction long ago. It seemed unlikely he'd be familiar with the beasts that roamed the Lands of Always Winter and their diseases. Knowledge of this kind was a hunter's domain and in the end I trusted Utir's judgement over Zolya's in this regard.

"Foxes are known to transmit a raving madness." Zolya finally took a seat by the fire. "The size of an animal tells us very little about such hidden dangers."

"Eat your stew." Captain Stane shoved his mug closer to Zolya. "If you think we're better off eating that foul swill, be my guest." He got up and wandered away from the fire, to the bear fur serving as flap of our makeshift tent. "But we're not going to stop sending out hunters because you're afraid of diseased foxes." He pulled the fur aside and peered out to the camp. The sun had set, but the light hadn't faded, the glittering snow now reflected the moon. For the first time in days it wasn't snowing, though the wind was as cold and biting as ever.

"We can't be picky," I turned to Zolya in a more amicable tone. "Having enough meat for all men to eat will cost us every last favor with the gods. But Utir knows what he's doing. He's one of the most experienced hunters in our crew. If anyone can make such a miracle happen, it's him."

"If it puts your mind at ease you may inspect any carcass before taking a bite." The captain returned to the fire and glared down to us. "Or forfeit your ration altogether, I don't care."

"Or you could let Skello try the meat first," Runar scoffed. "If he perishes from some unseen illness it will at least not be a great loss."

The captain's reprimanding glare jumped to Runar. "Didn't you listen to the man?" he barked. "He said it's a 'raving madness' those foxes transmit! How would we even tell the difference if the dimwit got infected?" He guffawed and sat back down on his old spot. "The storm has calmed down," he then changed the subject, giving a nod to the flap of the tent. "Tomorrow we'll catch up with Utir and his men, and today's worries about food will be forgotten."

 

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"They have to be somewhere." Urmand stomped back to the dinghy through the flurry of falling snow. "They can't possibly have crossed the ridges ahead in one night."

I nodded and glanced up to the captain, standing on top of the stacked dinghy and watching groups of scouts return from their search of the valley. "They would have sought shelter in the caverns," I said, reiterating the same thing I had told a dozen times to other men since our arrival. The severe weather limited our sight even by day, and the storm had raged worse than this all through the night. Now thick fog wafted around the foothills and the winds whipped up the snow, making our search of the cavern a slow, painful process.

"Snowed in, perhaps," Urmand muttered under his breath. "Whatever signs they left for us outside their cave must have been covered by snow in the night." He went around the dinghy to a pitiful shelter where Skello and Zolya tried to keep a dying fire burning. "Water," he grunted and Skello, for once without talking back, threw him one of the waterskins. "That many men don't just disappear," Urmand firmly added after taking a swig.

I wish I could have agreed with his hopeful statement, but our search of the valley had been going on for half a day without yielding any results. No, it didn't make any sense. Fifteen men who knew how to navigate snow-swept mountains didn't simply vanish without a trace. Yet we hadn't found a thing yet, no spears, no arrows, no makeshift markers outside a cave. There was nothing to the west, only an endless, white plane, and the Shivering Sea stretched out in the east. Utir had no reason to lead his men in either direction, there was no game to be found. They just had to be here in the valley, and yet they were not.

"We'll make camp for the night by the foothills. There's a large enough cave to provide shelter for most of the men." Captain Stane had descended from the elevated position and shot a disgusted glance to the pot over the fire. The stew was barely more than water by now, a thin, yellowish swill with pieces of leather and fishheads meant to add a questionable flavor and trick our minds into thinking we ate actual food. "By first light we'll send scouts ahead to search for a passage we can traverse with the dinghy." He turned away when I nodded and let his gaze drift across the valley. "How is this possible?" he muttered, more to himself. "How can our men simply disappear?"

"Perhaps they did venture into the hills," I gave back, watching yet another group of scouts return empty-handed. "We've been searching all day and haven't found any game either, no indication of beasts hiding in the caves."

The captain regarded me for a long, pensive moment. "You think they tracked something to higher ground?" he inquired.

I shook my head and wandered a few steps toward the hills. "What if something chased _them_?" I turned back around to face Captain Stane. "Something large, something dangerous, something that also scared away hares and foxes."

"The beasts that attacked the Tyroshi, perhaps." The captain's brow furrowed in thought under the thick, fur-lined hood. "If it was a direwolf pup, as Zolya concluded, it would suggest itself that a pack was nearby. Not the easiest prey, but if we can hunt down these hunters..." He waved the scouts over. "Gather the men," he told them, his voice now firm and commanding. "We'll set up camp by the largest cavern. I want guards posted outside all night, there might be a pack of wolves roaming the valley. Should they scent our presence and come out of hiding I want every man to be ready for an attack. If we take only one of these beasts down, we'll have food for two or three days."

The scouts nodded and began gesturing to other groups in the distance, calling them back to the dinghy to relay the new orders. "There might be no game in the caves, but..." Zolya got up from his spot by the fire and came over to me. "We might find mushrooms, mosses or roots in the deeper tunnels. It might not make for a full meal, but it would sustain us longer than cooking out the straps of our boots."

Captain Stane furtively regarded him for a moment, then he gave Zolya an approving nod. "Take some men along on the search," he said. "The cook and the scullion perhaps, they might have passing knowledge of such things."

"Let me join you!" Skello jumped up and joined our small group, looking to Zolya instead of the captain for permission.

"What do you know about edible things?" I grunted, though I had little hope the harsh tone would remind him to show some respect. "You complained about the food ever since we left Hardhome. Why would anyone trust your judgement of things picked up in a cave?"

"I've seen many herbs and mushrooms in my mother's pantry," Skello gave back and defiantly crossed his arms. "It's not my fault Orfald can't tell nettles from barley, yet has the audacity to call himself a cook."

I was about to reprimand him, but Zolya was faster. "You can join," he said, surprisingly calm. "You're slender, you'll fit into narrow crevices. Just don't start a fight with Orfald or I'll send you back to stand guard outside."

 

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The flames frantically flickered in the draught and illuminated only a small part of the cavern. From the main room, damp tunnels led deeper into the hill, too curved and too narrow for our fire to penetrate the thick darkness. The ragged openings, some spiked with icicles the length of a man's arm, looked like the hungry maws of gigantic worms and they seemed to swallow the glow of the first real fire we had lit in days.

"What are we going to do if there are no direwolves?" I turned to Captain Stane in a hushed tone. "What if the pack moved on to the other side of the ridge? What if there haven't been wolves in the first place? It might have been a snow bear that chased the small game from the valley, after all."

Those beasts were solitary creatures that seemed to merge with their snowy surroundings, even experienced hunting parties often lost sight in unfamiliar terrain. Therein lay the true danger of tracking them. A snow bear didn't need a disguise to be near-invisible in a short distance, its approach could easily go unnoticed until it was too late. If such a beast had attacked our hunters in the hills, it would have wandered off to the endless white planes after the feast. Though a wolf pack meant a different set of dangers, it also equaled more chances for prey. There'd be hope that one of the animals had been left behind wounded, that some of our hunters had gotten away. And this was the reason for my concern. We desperately told ourselves it had to be wolves, the lesser evil in our dire situation, and neglected to consider the possibility of the greater evils. A predator we couldn't hope to slay because it had long disappeared after mauling our hunters.

"Then we move on," Captain Stane firmly answered, though his eyes gave away that he didn't like this conversation. "What other choice do we have? There's no food where we came from. Should we even make it back to the ship, the last rat will long be eaten. And we might find our ship crushed by the ice that trapped it there in the first place." His eyes followed Zolya as he entered the cavern and looked around, perhaps searching for Orfald. "No, venturing north is all we can do," the captain continued and sighed to himself. "We must reach the settlement, the Nameless River. Seize the Tyroshi ship and their supplies."

I silently nodded and wandered away from the fire. "I'll see how the preparations for the guard post are going," I said when I had almost reached the mouth of the cave. _What if the Tyroshi already plundered the settlement? What if their ship and supplies had succumbed to the weather by now?_ The burden of having to ask myself these questions weighed heavily on my shoulders. I couldn't tell if Captain Stane kept up a couragous facade or of he was truly in denial. But I knew that the men would turn to me for guidance, should they lose faith in our captain, and I also knew that doubt in his leadership and hunger were closely related.

 

When I returned from the camp the first thing I noticed was a lively discussion. Zolya, Orfald and Skello stood on top of a rocky ledge, in front of two larger tunnels. Several other men had gathered under their platform, looking up and listening to the ongoing disagreement.

That fucking dimwit, I thought as I walked over. Skello had probably started an argument with the cook, after all. Hadn't Zolya explicitly warned him to keep his opinion about the food to himself? I passed by the captain and overheard his conversation with a group of men, something about lighting additional fires and blocking the mouth of cave. Urmand was with them, and though he didn't seem keen on being locked out over night he didn't argue against the suggestion. Should a wolfpack wreak havoc outside, it would be crucial to hinder the beasts from entering the cavern and prevent attacks on the sleeping men.

"What's the matter?" I asked when I reached the ledge and my voice made the three men on top pause.

"Reko went in there," Orfald explained to my surprise. Apparently, the discussion had not been about Skello's disapproval of the food, but the scullion. "We can still hear him, but we don't see the light of his torch. Climbed down some kind of burrow and now he can't get out."

"He can, if you let me help him!" Skello interjected. "I'm much taller, I can reach him and pull him up even if we can't spare another rope! Maybe he can throw it up to me if I get to the edge and provide him with light."

"We don't know how deep down the boy went." Zolya spoke directly to me and ignored Skello despite him standing between us. "It would be foolish to send someone after him. These tunnels narrow the further you go. A tall man, even a skinny fellow, might get stuck where a boy of thirteen effortlessly fits through."

"It's not worth the risk," Orfald added. "There are no roots or mosses. We told Reko to come back when he said so, but he didn't listen. Said there might be something on the bottom of the burrow, so he climbed down. And only found more rocks and frozen mud, and that he couldn't get out."

"We can't just leave him there!" Skello defiantly crossed his arms. "He went in there to help us, we should at least try to return the favor. If I don't fit through the tunnel I'll turn back around."

"Give him a torch," I turned to Orfald, then looked back to Skello. "Just keep in mind that nobody will come after you if you get stuck," I warned him. "We can't afford losing men because they won't listen."

Skello grabbed the torch Orfald held out to him in one swift, stubborn motion. "I'm not that stupid," he noted. "I've grown up in the western mountains, I know my way around tunnels and caverns better than any of you."

 

﴾ _____________________________________________________________________________________ ﴿

 

"You shouldn't have allowed him to enter the tunnel." Zolya didn't look at me, he kept his eyes on the muddy path the men ahead of us had trampled into the snow. "When the boy said he couldn't get out, we should have known a tall lad wouldn't make it out of there either."

"And Skello should have known that he was the only one left who even fit into the mouth of the tunnel," I gave back. "I warned him, he knew that none of us could come to his aid. He crawled in anyway, though nobody would have thought any lesser of him if he had changed his mind."

I heard Urmand laughing at that somewhere behind me and the remark he made was the one I expected. "Can't fall in esteem if you lie flat on the ground," he said. "The mouthy brat had every chance to back out, yet he didn't. Nobody to blame for his demise except for himself."

He was right, Skello had brought this upon himself. Had he never suggested to go after Reko, nobody would have asked him to try. Zolya and Orfald had both argued against it, and most of the men who had witnessed the discussion had sided with them. Still, it didn't sit right with me that things had turned out the way they did in the end. We had already lost too many men with Utir and his party of hunters. Skello and Reko were little more than dead weight, but they were still crew members and the captain and I were still responsible for their fates.

Captain Stane didn't question my decision. It was a calculated risk we had to take, he told me late at night, long after Skello's cries had gone silent. "We don't leave men behind," the captain had said. "Not if we can help it."

We couldn't help it anymore in the morning. All we could do was throw some timber down the dark tunnel. Perhaps Skello could reach it, could keep the fire of his torch alive a little while longer. I wasn't so sure if starving in relative warmth and light would be preferable to freezing in darkness, but in the end this was a choice Skello and Reko had to make. We received no answer when we called out for them. Maybe, I thought, they were lucky. _Maybe they are already dead._


	3. Act III

On our march to a hill pass the scouts had located in the early morning, I still felt uneasy with leaving the two boys behind. The gods didn't give us a choice, I kept telling myself. We had to keep moving, had to cross the hills and cling to our hope that we would find food on the way. The wolfpack hadn't done us the favor of showing up in the night, but there was a chance the beasts had entered the pass we now traveled. If they were really to blame for our hunters' disappearance, and Captain Stane didn't let go of this conviction, their den might be near the place where the wolves had attacked.

I had my doubts, but I kept them to myself. The last thing our men needed was someone telling them that Captain's Stane merely clung to a theory, one possibility out of many. Hunger had weakened their bodies enough, and confronting them with the harsh reality of our situation would only serve to break the last resolve their tired minds could muster.

 

"Over here!"

Demyan's voice echoed between the rugged rocks and woke me up from my bleak contemplation. Ahead of me, I saw several men rush toward him and an almost tangible wave of excitement swept through the crew. I hurried to follow the others and when I saw what Demyan had discovered, I knew our sacrifice in the cave had been worth it.

The elk's body was almost intact, only one of the hind legs was missing from the joint down. The antlers, however, were in a bad condition. There were scratches and cracks, and points were broken off from both sides. This elk had put up a fight, but whatever had attacked the beast had won in the end.

While the crew set up camp and Orfald lit a fire, I walked around the carcass, perhaps to convince myself that it was real. Why had the attacker only taken part of the leg, I wondered. Had it been a lone wolf instead of the pack we expected? If so, it couldn't be the reason for Utir's disappearance. A recent attack then, I came up with a new explanation. Our approach had scared off the attackers and prevented their feast. I was about to share my conclusion with Captain Stane, order scouts to look out for lurking wolves in the distance, but before I went over to him something caught my attention and I froze.

The elk's eyes were gone. Where they should have been, I only saw gaping holes of frozen blood and flesh.

When I woke up from my shock and confusion, I saw Zolya standing on the other side of the carcass, holding the missing part of the leg. My gaze followed his and found a rocky outcropping. The blood looked almost black on the dark stone, and broken pieces of the antlers lay scattered around it. There had been no attack, I realized. The animal had tried to free its leg from this sharp-edged trap, and the only explanation for why it had been caught there in the first place made me shudder. It would have been easy to walk around this treacherous spot even for a large beast like this. But the elk hadn't seen it. It had already been blind.

Something was wrong with this elk, very wrong. Zolya and I both knew it, but neither of us said it out loud. It was futile to discourage the men from eating the carcass, so we saved our breath. Even if the meat had been black and putrid, which it wasn't, it wouldn't have stopped the starving mob. This would be their first meal since we abandoned the ship, and it would likely be the last one for a very long time. And so Zolya and I only watched when they dragged the dead elk to Orfald's small fire, began skinning the beast, and carved the red meat.

 

Zolya seemed mildly surprised when I sat down next to him on a rock, away from the crowd. "Are you merely giving your crewmen the advantage in the battle for the best cuts? Or are you taking my word of warning serious, after all?" He reached under his patchwork of furs and produced a waterskin, then drank a few sips while calmly watching the bustle by the fire.

"Crows don't do that," I gave back. "They eat carrion. They don't peck out the eyes of the living, beast or man." I took the waterskin Zolya offered to me and drank a swig. "Besides, even if this was a peculiar habit of the crows out here... We haven't seen any birds of prey nor have we heard any caws." I returned the waterskin and sighed to myself, trying to ignore the rumbling of my empty stomach. "These lands are bare of any life and there's something unnatural about it."

Zolya nodded and rummaged around under his layers of fur, carefully looked around, then pulled out a small bag. "Moss used to treat wounds," he whispered when he gave it to me. "It isn't much, but it's a lot more than nothing. And it won't poison us with an unknown malady, though it's not meant for consumption."

"Neither are our belts or bootstraps," I replied just as hushed, though the men around the fire paid us no attention. I hastily opened the bag and shoved its contents into my mouth, an earthy-tasting sludge I found hard to swallow. Zolya held the waterskin out to me, and the icy water helped to wash down the moss.

"It won't sustain us for long," I heard Zolya say. "But I rather share my meager rations than try to make it alone to the Nameless River."

"Alone?" I echoed, but deep inside I already knew what he meant. If the elk was afflicted with some kind of disease, the madness might take hold in those who consumed the infested meat. Zolya remained silent as I looked to the fire, watched the captain take a first bite while hungry men scrambled around him, urging Orfald to hurry and hand them their share. "We need to sleep with one eye open from now on," I finally said. "If they begin to show signs of a madness, we'll split from the group."

"A madness..." Zolya got up from the rock and wandered a few steps away, toward the slope of the hills. "Or a something more sinister, a curse haunting these lands. Whichever it is, we should pray that it didn't spread to the Tyroshi and the settlement they came to raid."

 

﴾ _____________________________________________________________________________________ ﴿

 

"Wake up! Ture, wake up!" Zolya's voice carried urgency, hushed as it was. "We need to go, now!"

For one long moment, I just stared at up at him, hunkering next to me like a vulture assessing if its meal was truly dead. Then the haze of sleep left my mind and I jumped up, jolted awake by the realization that the strange sounds were not the wind. It was a chanting; deep, growling and uninflected, coming from the dark figures by the fire.

"What is going on? What are they doing?" I whispered, but Zolya didn't answer, he only grabbed my sleeve and pulled me further away, toward the steep, rocky slope.

"Up the hills," he gave back, dragging me further in that direction. "I took what I could from the dinghy, we'll have to leave everything else behind."

 

Fog wafted up from the valley, and the moon lay obscured behind ragged, white clouds, but the limited sight didn't stop us from climbing. We felt our way up between sharp rocks and frozen, dead brambles until we reached a ledge far above the pass. Out of breath, I sunk down on my knees and finally dared to look down to the gathering by the fire. "What happened?" I turned back to Zolya, sitting behind me and catching his breath as well.

"The captain, he..." he muttered, then his voice trailed off and he stared into the distance.

The fog blurred the shapes of the men in the pass, and all I could make out was that they formed a circle around something near the fire. Some lay on the ground under furs and blankets, half-covered in snow, but I soon realized that they were not sleeping. Others had apparently just collapsed in unnatural positions, their hands still clutching spears, swords or bows. They didn't move, didn't react when they were shoved away from the fire.

"What about the captain?" I nudged Zolya's leg to wake him up from his trance. "What happened down there while I was asleep?"

"He took his dagger," Zolya replied, though he still sounded as if he was far away. "Cut out his eyes, ordered the men to follow his example, 'so they would see the true path they had to take'." He inched closer to the edge and peered down to the valley. "Some refused... The ones you now see dead on the ground."

 

﴾ _____________________________________________________________________________________ ﴿

 

It was still dark when we descended the northern slope of the hills, but it must have been the early hours of morning. The bizarre events of the night lay behind us, though there were moments when I thought I could still hear the chants and growls echo in the distance. After hours of climbing and sliding through the rocky terrain, however, Zolya and I were sure none of the others had followed us. Either they had been too preoccupied with their gathering, whatever purpose it served, to notice our silent departure - or they had taken the 'true path' the madness had shown them and it simply led in a different direction. "Perhaps they all cut out their eyes. That's what the captain demanded," Zolya remarked. "If there are any survivors, they're probably stumbling around in the pass instead of following a specific path."

We kept walking along the foothills, staying away from the mouth of the pass and advancing eastward, to the coastline. Should the madmen our former companions had become make it past the hills, they better not catch up to us. The storm calmed down when the wan light of the sun fell over the open plane. It felt peaceful, as if the elements had exhausted their rage and granted us a moment to breathe, a gift we gratefully accepted.

"What are our odds?" Zolya asked when we sat down on some large, snow-covered boulders. "How far away is the settlement? Are we the madmen for thinking we stand a chance to reach it on our own?"

"Don't talk like that," I gave back. "It's not hopeless. We don't have to pull the dinghy, we can now trail the coast and won't have to take detours around hills and rough terrain. If the gods have mercy on us and keep the winds as calm as they are, we'll reach the Nameless River in four or five days."

Zolya nodded and stared to the brightening eastern horizon, and for a while it was silent except for the crackling of snow. "Were we mad to come here in the first place?" he then asked, talking more to himself, not expecting an answer.

"Perhaps," I admitted. "But who could have forseen the things that have happened? We only knew there was an opportunity to teach the Tyroshi a lesson and secure supplies for a long, harsh winter at the same time."

We continued our way to the coast mostly in silence, containing the inner turmoil in our thoughts. There was little to say about our situation that hadn't been said twice already, and the monotony of the triste landscape didn't offer any prompts for conversation either. We reached the shore, bleak and frozen, by nightfall, but we only rested there for a few hours. The gods, as distant as they seemed in these forlorn lands, had answered our silent prayers to keep the winds calm and therefore we made good headway despite the rougher terrain.

The endless white plane felt serene, almost inviting, as if the land tried to assure us that it wished us no more harm. Undisturbed snow glimmered in the pale light of the moon, stretching out as far as the eye could see in the northern direction. Even the Shivering Sea to the east seemed peaceful and placid, calm, black waters with erratic, white shapes emerging from the icy mist.

It must have been around midnight when we took our only break that night. We ate some of Zolya's moss while watching the quiet, black water from the edge of the ragged coast, then we pressed on toward the settlement we believed to be our salvation. Three days, just three more days, I kept telling myself. We had come so far, of course we would make it.

 

﴾ _____________________________________________________________________________________ ﴿

 

The weak sun stood high when we came across a first and undeniable sign that our quest wasn't futile. We had seen the sparse forest of pine trees from the top of a slope, and the vegetation alone would have been enough to replenish our hope. The prospect of shelter and a chance of finding edible roots or more mosses captured our imagination and meant an end to our silent march. But what we found exceeded all expectations.

Nestled between the vines of a thorny thicket, we discovered a shelter, clearly man-made, albeit abandoned. A large skin, likely a bear's or a direwolf's, was stretched above a shallow ditch, sheltering it from wind and snow. Some steps away from it, a small, triangular snow pile hid the remains of a fire pit, and a kick revealed the charred stack of wood. Upon further inspection of the campsite, we found a second ditch next to a fir tree. This one was filled with snow since there was no skin above it, but under the tree we discovered two long branches that had been cleaned from twigs with some kind of blade. Makeshift fishing rods, I concluded, or perhaps attempts to fashion simple spears.

"We can't be far from the settlement," Zolya said. He was trying to lit a fire in the pit while I freed the bear or wolf skin from the snow pile weighing it down. "If they came here to hunt, it might just be the nearest forest."

"It probably is." I nodded to a vague point somewhere behind the thicket. "Some trees over there have been cut as well. Can't imagine they dragged them a longer distance than they had to."

Having finished my work, I went to inspect the second ditch by the tree. Perhaps there had been tools left behind or I'd find the missing skin buried under the snow. From the corner of my eye I saw Zolya lean down to blow on the twigs, apparently he had succeeded and finally ignited the wood. "I wonder what they were hoping to hunt here," he said when he sat back up. "They crafted spears or rods, but there's no sign of game in this forest. You'd think every bird, fox and hare would flock to these trees, but there's no rustling, no caws, no tracks in the snow."

"They might have gone deeper into the forest," I suggested, though 'deep' was a rather relative term out here. The trees stood far apart and if it hadn't been for the ground fog in the distance, we would probably have seen where the forest ended from our position. "Or they came here for firewood and hunting only occured to them as an afterthought, who knows?"

I listlessly poked around in the ditch with the rod I had picked up, and to my surprise, there was something buried under the snow. At first I thought it was a rock or a chunk of ice, but I knelt down and dug it out anyway. A small package of leather, wrapped around something soft.

"Is that...?" I heard Zolya ask, disbelief echoing in his voice.

I couldn't unwrap the bundle fast enough. "It is..." I gave back, equally awed, staring down at the piece of red meat in my hands.

 

For a while we just sat there, unable to turn our eyes away from this glorious gift. Then disenchantment set in and I looked over my shoulder to Zolya. "How do we know?" I asked.

I brought the meat over to him and he carefully inspected the piece from all sides. It was in a decent condition, all things considered. Being buried under the snow had spared it from rot, even though it had probably been there for a while. Still, we didn't know where it came from. If the beast still had eyes when it died. "We'll take the risk and roast it," Zolya finally said. "The meat comes from a hare, not a large beast. Whoever left the bundle here must have eaten some of it and saved this bit for later. We can't be certain, of course, but I think if the meat was infested, we'd have found this place in disarray."

It was the best meal I ever had in my life, this hare meat from a snowy ditch in the Lands of Always Winter. Zolya was right, I told myself. If the hunters had succumbed to the madness, we might have found an eyeless corpse instead of a neatly wrapped bundle of meat. They had probably not even been hunters. It seemed more likely that people had come here for wood, and merely forgot about the bycatch once they were busy with the cumbersome task of transporting large trees to their village. This theory also supported the hope of the settlement being nearby, a thought that further lifted our spirits.

We decided to stay in this camp for the night and conserve our strength for the next day. It would be the last stretch of the journey, we were certain of that, and we might face a new problem upon our arrival. Two men couldn't raid a settlement nor seize a ship, so we had to come up with a solution. Maybe we'd be able to sneak into the cargo hold at night, maybe it would be wiser to negotiate and omit our true motives for traveling to these forsaken lands.

Evening had approached when rustling and the cracking of frozen branches jolted us out of our conversation. Our heads spun around almost simultaneously, then we froze in motion when we saw the source of these sounds. The lanky figure shambled along the path, almost tripped over a rock, then stopped and stared at the fire.

"Skello?!" Zolya and I blurted out with one voice.


	4. Act IV

The figure didn't immediately react and just kept staring for a while, but he was close enough to the fire to leave no room for doubt. It was, undeniably, Skello.

It took a long moment for the bemusement to wear off, but there was still no reaction from Skello to our blank stares. I exchanged a quick glance with Zolya, hoping he'd have some kind of explanation, but all he offered was a slight shrug.

"You're alone." Skello had begun moving again, but he still didn't come closer. He shambled around us on a circular path, seemingly as suspicious of us as we were of him.

"So are you," Zolya gave back, furtively watching Skello from the corner of his eye.

Now Skello stopped and regarded us with apparent amusement. "Shouldn't surprise you," he said. "You left me to die in that accursed tunnel."

"We didn't have a choice," Zolya replied. "And we warned you. You crawled in there on your own volition."

To our bewilderment, Skello laughed out loud before his expression became serious again all of a sudden and he resumed slowly circling our fire. "So we all got away in the end," he noted when he reached the uncovered ditch. "Unlike the others."

"You saw them? Where? How many were there?" I quickly asked, hoping he could tell us if there were still pursuers we had to watch out for at night. We didn't know if all of the survivors had followed the captain's example. Some might still be able to see, and they had weapons better than two carved branches and daggers.

"I don't know." Skello shrugged and kicked some snow into the ditch. "Didn't count. Most were staggering through the pass, all in different directions. Some sat around a fire and dug around in what looked like a carcass. Couldn't tell what it was from the hilltop, but it looked big."

"It was an elk," Zolya said. "Dead when we found it. Ture and I suspected that something was wrong with the meat. We refrained from eating it, however, the rest of the crew did. At night, when the madness overcame them, we took advantage of their distraction and escaped to the hills." He glanced over to me, silently asking if we were in agreement about Skello not posing a threat.

I subtly nodded, then waved Skello closer. If he hadn't been close enough to recognize the dead beast as an elk, he surely hadn't eaten from it. "Sit down," I said, nodding to the fire. "The three of us are all that's left of the crew. We better stick together and put past differences aside."

Skello reluctantly accepted my offer, but he kept a distance to us when he sat down. "What kept you alive after your daring escape?" he asked, skeptically eyeing us up. "Were there any dead rats left to steal in the dinghy?"

"I didn't get close enough to look for hidden stashes, but I doubt there were any," Zolya replied. He, too, intently studied Skello's face, aided by the now brighter shine of the fire. "I took my medicinal supplies when we abandoned the ship though, a small amount of dried mosses. Barely enough to sustain a man, but sufficient to not succumb to madness from hunger."

"What about you?" My tone was more challenging than intended. Skello had certainly spotted the bones in the fire pit, yet he had not asked us about leftover food. He also looked fairly well-nourished, all things considered, which made me suspect his ordeal in the cavern had yielded results. "Did you find roots or mushrooms in the tunnel? Did you take any with you?"

 

Once more Skello unexpectedly guffawed instead of giving an answer, and there was a strange, otherwordly gleam in his eyes. A lanky lad like him was no match for me, and Zolya, though less accustomed to weapons, could have fought him off with ease as well. Yet there was something feral and frightening about his demeanor that sent cold shivers down our spines.

"Poor Reko..." Skello was still shaking with laughter. "Never saw it coming, it was almost too easy." He exhaled deeply to calm himself down while Zolya and I stared at him, frozen in motion. "It doesn't make any sense, you know? Not eating our own." Skello smiled and his tone was casual, as if this was idle chatter and not a confession of breaking the ultimate taboo. "We taste like anyone else! Wildlings, Northmen, 'Tyroshi', it's all the same." He paused, thought for a moment, then his smile faded into an apologetic frown. "I'm afraid I can't offer you any food though. Ate the last bit I took when I spotted this forest and thought to myself I'd find new supplies here."

"It's alright," I hastily said, trying to not let on my disgust. "We're close to the Nameless River." I glanced to Zolya who glared back with bewilderment from under his hood, tried to signal to him that I knew what I was doing. "But the meager meals we had drained our strength. Moss, and some shreds of meat on these gnawed off bones..." I nodded to the fire and sighed. "You're in much better shape, so perhaps you can scout out the settlement tomorrow. Gauge what resistance we'll encounter or if we can sneak in unseen."

To my great relief, Skello agreed to the proposed plan right away. He was quite evidently not in his right mind and it worked in my favor. Instead of suspecting my true motives behind assigning him to a dangerous task, Skello took it as a sign of trust and appreciation.

"You'd be doomed without me," he kept muttering with a smug grin on his face. "Now who's the true survivor among us? The first mate who abandoned his captain and crew? Or the shipboy too dumb to follow the simplest of orders?"

 

Zolya and I humored him. We confirmed that he had indeed proven his worth to us, that we stood no chance if it wasn't for him. As the sky darkened, his ramblings became more erratic. There were things he said that didn't make any sense, and there were hushed, ominous whispers that filled me with dread. Finally, Zolya convinced him that he should sleep. Said we'd take turns watching the fire and wouldn't disturb him, so he'd be well-rested and alert in the morning.

Skello gladly accepted our offer to sleep in the sheltered ditch while Zolya and I stayed close to the fire. We kept the makeshift spears nearby and my hand didn't let go of my dagger all night. Yes, Skello was still the skinny lad he had been upon our departure from Skagos, and I could easily have taken him down in a fight. But it was clear that some kind of madness had possessed him, something worse than what had ravaged the crew.

The thought of Skello gnawing on the bones of the boy haunted me and at first I feared I wouldn't find any sleep when it was Zolya's turn to keep an eye on the fire. But in the end, exhaustion won over and I drifted off into a short, dreamless slumber.

 

﴾ _____________________________________________________________________________________ ﴿

 

Heavy snowfall welcomed us in the morning, a flurry of falling stars wafting down from the overcast sky. Fog crept up between the trees and hindered our sight, therefore we decided to stay close to the coast when we had left the forest behind us. In a world of white against white, the rocky shoreline was our only constant, a landmark we could trail to not lose our way.

Zolya had suggested to give Skello one of the sharpened branches, and I had agreed, albeit with reluctance. I didn't like the thought of arming the man who had eaten a stoneborn boy only a few days ago and seemed to think nothing of it. However, Zolya convinced me in the end. It would make our charade of having faith in his skills as a scout more believable, he said, and should he encounter any dangers he'd at least have a fighting chance. I didn't like that thought either. For all I cared, Skello didn't deserve any chances, but I also still saw his merit as bait. Having him scout ahead increased our odds of survival. He was a convenient distraction that might allow us to get away from encounters with wildlings, Tyroshi and whatever strange beasts roamed these lost lands.

Things went as planned, or so we thought at first sight. Skello nodded along when we handed him the makeshift weapon and didn't show any signs of being hostile or suspicious. However, he didn't show any signs of understanding what we explained to him either. He didn't speak at all, he only grinned and contorted his face to benighted grimaces. At least he did walk ahead when we left the camp, though not as far as I had suggested. We could hear him laugh through the howling wind, could see him gesture through the fog and the snow, apparently talking to himself, the storm or the sky.

 

﴾ _____________________________________________________________________________________ ﴿

 

"Praise the gods, even if they won't hear us out here..." Zolya's voice, filled with awe, was merely a whisper, but words were not needed to convey the relief we both felt. My eyes were drawn to the snowbound structures in a short distance, barely visible on the banks of a frozen river, the bright blue sails of the Tyroshi galley rising into the murky dusk from beyond.

"Just like Captain Stane predicted," I got out, staring to the almost unreal sight ahead. "The settlement, the ship holding out in the mouth of the river, it's all exactly the way he hoped."

"It is not." Zolya had stopped and turned his head to look me in the eye from under his hood. "There are no people, this place looks abandoned. No flickering glow from fires behind the ship's windows, no columns of smoke above the huts and tents."

I narrowed my eyes, but still couldn't make out any details. All I saw was Skello, laughing as he shambled toward the nearest building, waving the sharpened branch in the air. "Why would the Tyroshi have abandoned ship if they made it this far?" I gave back. "They must have taken their captives long before the bad storm reached the river. Now they're probably waiting it out on the far side of the ship."

We exchanged a dumbfounded glance when we noticed that Skello was no longer near the building, yet the wind still carried his mad laughter to us. A moment later Skello reemerged. Apparently he had discovered a door or window leading into the rickety hut. He didn't seem to remember our presence though as he didn't even look in our direction. Instead, he wandered toward a group of snow piles that, going by their shape, hid the remnants of tents.

"If anyone was still in those buildings, they'd have heard his ranting by now," Zolya said. "And should the Tyroshi still be on the ship, he'll draw their attention while we search the huts."

I nodded and together we headed for the nearest hut where we found the shattered remains of a door standing open. There was very little to survey inside, but having a roof over our heads was good enough for the moment. After our long march through the snow, it almost felt surreal to be inside a manmade structure, a silent reminder that we were not all alone in this world.

We rummaged through the wooden planks that had probably been crude pieces of furniture before the Tyroshi must have attacked. Not much was left and therefore we didn't expect to find anything of use among the broken pieces and rubble. A sooty blot on the ground suggested a fire pit, nearby were planks that could have been used as a bed, but lacked furs and blankets, one corner housed the smashed in remains of a trunk. Zolya stayed by the door and kept an eye on Skello while I inspected the container and found nothing in it except for more broken wood.

"He must have discovered something in those tents," Zolya said and frantically waved me over.

I joined him by the door and outside I saw Skello, standing in front of the largest triangular snow pile. He held the flap open and peered inside, regarded his apparent discovery for a moment, then guffawed and moved around the tents, toward the bank of the Nameless River. His reaction didn't give any hints about the nature of the tent's contents, so Zolya and I had to see for ourselves. As soon as Skello had staggered away far enough for our comfort, we left the shelter of the hut and hurried to the group of snowbound tents.

 

It was unlikely that the Tyroshi had left useful supplies behind, but deep down, I still hoped there'd be at least furs or perhaps even a pot of weeks-old, frozen soup. But what I found when I pulled the flap open was neither. Three men stared back at me from eyeless sockets, their exposed hands and feet black with gangrene, their blue-dyed beards clinging like icicles to their distorted faces. Thin silver chains formed some sort of web between rings that pierced the skin in seemingly random places; ears, nostrils, lips and cheeks. As flamboyant as Tyroshi robes often were, these rings and chains were placed too haphazardly to be a quirk of foreign fashion.

Our further search of the few buildings yielded nothing but broken planks and a few shredded rags, both of it damp and frozen. The largest of the huts contained most of our findings. An empty rack on a wall and a stringless bow leaning below it, a fire pit with a knocked over cauldron, scattered bones of hares and birds on the ground.

Since Skello had been all but quiet outside, yet nobody had emerged from the galley to find the source of the screeching and laughter, we decided it would be safe to inspect the ship. The storm had calmed down somewhat during our search of the buildings, but the weather out here was erratic. Should the winds and the snowfall get heavier at night, we'd rather have sturdier shelter in the brightly painted hulk than a rickety shack.

 

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The gangway was slippery and frozen over, as was the exposed upper deck. Only some of the sails had been taken in and I couldn't figure out why not all had been lowered. The mouth of the river was a safe haven and the Tyroshi were lucky to have made it here. Why would they risk drifting out to the ocean where ice floes might damage their hull and oars?

While Skello kept roaming the snowy banks, Zolya and I began to survey the ship. Our first way led to the captain's cabin under the helm. The door was unlocked and revealed a room in disarray when we pulled it open. Unlike in the shacks, the cabin wasn't empty. We found blankets, furs, and clothes scattered across a chaotic arrangement of furniture. Knocked over chairs on the far side of the room. A hammock filled with all sorts of clutter; pots, sea charts, a mismatched pair of boots, leather-bound books and a pile of colorful scarves. Apparently someone had tried to barricade the small window with a shelf, it still leaned against the wall, propped up by a turned over table.

"This doesn't bode well," Zolya noted, but he refrained from commenting further on it.

"Could be they retreated to the common room," I gave back, though my hope that it was true was quickly fading. If there was a gathering of survivors under deck, I was reasonably certain that we would have heard something. Yet there was an eerie silence on this ship, the only sounds came from our footsteps and the sails flapping in the wind. "They might be hiding," I tried to convince myself. "Evidently, madness befell the men we found in the tent. The rest might just be in our position, a lucky few who got away just in time. Of course they'll keep quiet if they fear the infected might be looking for them."

 

I followed Zolya outside and looked around until I spotted a hatch, probably leading down to the common room. "At least we now know they didn't get away from the ship," I heard Zolya say while I tried to force the frozen over hatch open. "The dinghy is still here. There are some furs and waterskins on it and someone lowered the boat into the river, but it is still attached to the ropes."

"Skello's approach might have spooked them." I kicked shards of ice away from the hatch, then used the makeshift spear to pry it open. "They couldn't know who was coming. If we were armed, if we were hostile." The hatch cracked and finally gave in, revealing a ladder leading down into a murky darkness. "The dinghy can't be seen from the direction we came from, but they'd have been sitting ducks on the river."

Zolya didn't reply, but I caught a glimpse of him skeptically glaring at me as he came closer. "Leave them in their hideout, if that's where they really are," he said. "We should take the boat up the river ourselves. Go inland, try to reach the Valley of Thenn. Or any other place less cursed and haunted."

"We will," I firmly gave back as I began ascending the ladder. "By first light we'll leave, but some furs and waterskins won't get us far. We need to find supplies. Untainted bodies, any food they may have. At least proper weapons, if nothing else." 


	5. Act V

The belly of the ship offered a horrific sight wherever we went.

In the common room, which we had found at the end of the ladder, a dozen or so dead Tyroshi lay scattered between the tables and benches. Their motley attire was stained with dried blood, evidently the result of the gruesome wounds on their faces. At first glance, we couldn't tell whether these corpses lacked eyes, but Zolya's discovery in the adjacent galley gave a strong hint to what had transpired.

The partially flayed carcass of a white wolf lay on a workbench; some of the better cuts had been butchered and the stained pan on the stove suggested they had been cooked. Most of the butchery had been done on the back and the hind legs. The forlegs, neck and head were still intact, and there was no doubt about this beast being eyeless. Two empty black holes stared back at us from immaculate white fur, the same gaping holes we had seen on the elk.

Either the men in the common room had consumed the infested meat and succumbed to the same madness as Captain Stane, or they were slaughtered by their crewmates when they refused to cut out their eyes.

Our search of the galley turned up nothing useful. A crate of forks and knives was our best find, but compared to the daggers we carried, they made for inadequate weapons, so we left them behind.

Further down the hallway, we entered the crew room. Dozens of hammocks swayed empty between the columns and walls; some had heaps of brightly colored robes underneath them, most showed stains of black, dried blood. We moved on and discovered more dead bodies, eyeless and apparently thrown onto a pile without care in what we thought was the first mate's cabin. Someone had tried to burn them, but the moisture and cold seeping in through a broken window had extinguished the flames before they had reached the corpses. Sooty chunks of wood lay scattered around them; pieces of damaged furniture, a partially scorched carpet and what looked like the ashes of burned sea charts or scrolls.

Outside on the hallway, where we suspected the hatch to the lower decks, a huge conglomeration of heavy items blocked our way. There were several doors and curtains left and right, barred by wardrobes, tables, chairs and an ornate sea chest. Through gaps in this mishmash we saw the metal ring of the hatch, but we were too exhausted, too hopeless to dig our way through. Considering what we had discovered so far, the lower decks were probably sealed off for a reason. We settled for opening the chest in front of the stack and, as if the gods wanted to reward our last ditch effort, found a fishing net and a handful of hooks in it.

With our meager loot, we returned to the quarterdeck. The captain's cabin, despite the chaos, offered the least discomforting shelter for the night and allowed us to keep an eye on Skello outside after moving the shelf away from the window.

It had been quiet during our exploration of the ship, but the night brought with it an even eerier silence. The world stood perfectly still, frozen in motion; not even the northwind howled, and Skello's mad laughter had ceased, though we still saw him wander around on the moonlit plane. Once we were reasonably certain he had retreated into one of the shacks, we pushed the shelf in front of the door to bar it, then arranged the furs and blankets on the floor. What little luxury this barge of the dead had to offer, we took it. A long, laborious journey awaited us in the morning and it would demand all the strength we had left.

There were many rumors and legends about the Valley of Thenn, and only few stoneborn had ever ventured to this remote area to see which were true. Giants were said to still roam these lands, and some people spoke of cave-dwelling clans living deep in the mountains, worshippers or dark gods long forgotten to the Known World. But wherever the icy waters of the Nameless River would take us, it couldn't be worse than this cursed place. With luck and fortitude, we stood a chance to reach a settlement of the Thenn. A real village, not a bunch of abandoned huts and tents. They worshipped the same gods Zolya and I prayed to, and perhaps this would be enough to be welcomed as brothers in their midst.

 

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Darkness surrounded us when we awoke in the night, but the ship was no longer shrouded in silence. My first thought was that the storm had picked up again, that a strong gale from the sea tore on the sails and rattled the rigging. "Is he still out there?" I turned to Zolya who peered out through the small window, looking for Skello, or so I assumed. I got up from my pile of blankets and was about to walk over, but I froze when a sudden realization set in. The sounds didn't come from outside, the source was somewhere under my feet. It wasn't the wind howling either. The longer I listened, the more I recognized it as a cacophony of voices, a sonorous chorus of chants, repeating the same foreign words again and again. Evidently, the barricaded hatch wasn't the only way to the cargo deck and whoever, _whatever_ , had been lurking down there had escaped the confinement. The chanting came from the common room below the quarterdeck, along with rattling and tapping and heavy footsteps.

"We need to get out of here!" Zolya rushed away from the window and toward the door, grabbing the fishing net we had found on the way. "Now!" He got no arguments from me. I drew my dagger and looked around for the makeshift spear while Zolya moved the shelf we had used to bar the door.

He opened the door and a gust of snow and cold rain was whipped inside, but we didn't have the time or mind to worry about the weather. The dinghy was our only chance to get away from this cursed ghost ship; we just had to reach it before the chanters emerged from the hatch. "Take the spear!" I yelled through the raging storm as I followed the blurry outline of Zolya outside. The heavy snowfall made it hard to see, and I stumbled almost blindly across the slippery deck.

"It's only fastened with ropes," I heard Zolya yell back. He said something else, but the screaming winds swallowed his words. I presumed he pointed out that he could cut the boat loose with the dagger, as I could make out the blade in his hand, gleaming in the moonlit flurry of snow.

 

I was only a few steps behind him when it happened. It came out of nowhere, no warning, no sound. At first, I didn't understand why there was this sudden absence of snow and moonlight, that I was looking at some kind of living darkness. But then it moved. I have seen the most beastly of men and the most human of beasts, and I knew in this moment that I was looking at neither. Black eyes filled with stars, each light the reflection of a life spark devoured, an incomprehensible, fickle shape in constant motion. It was a creature, though the word hardly does justice to the horror I felt when I realized it was alive.

Zolya's scream jolted me out of my frozen terror. I saw him get thrown against the rail, but before I had gathered myself enough to even consider a reaction, I heard something else. A high-pitched screech from the settlement, followed by manic laughing, loud enough to not be drowned out by the chanting and wind. Skello was standing on the open space near the tents, wearing only smallclothes and waving his tattered shirt like a flag.

The creature, _this living void_ , took note of Skello as well and wafted to the other side of the deck. I didn't think, I instinctively used this moment of distraction to rush over to Zolya and pull him up on his feet. There was still shrieking and mad laughter carried to us through the wind's howling when I dragged him, I don't recall how, down to the dinghy and cut the ropes.

"What in the world is that thing?" I whispered, not sure if I managed to say it out loud.

"It is not of this world, that much I know," Zolya gave back, followed by a muffled groan.

"Are you hurt? Do you have wounds that need attention?" I could barely see him in the dark, but his voice suggested he was in pain.

"Not enough to stay here just a heartbeat longer," came the answer, then his oars hit the freezing water.

Strength born from fear moved our oars, allowed us to escape the otherworldly terror. The ominous chanting, the mad shrieks and laughter; the sounds merged with the howling storm and finally faded altogether. Every bone in my body was aching, but we couldn't afford any rest. More than once we almost lost control over the dinghy or feared the boat had sustained damage from drifting floes, but the thought of slowing down never once crossed my mind.

 

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The storm calmed down when morning came closer, and by the time the early sun fell upon the Nameless River, it was perfectly still. It wasn't the eerie silence of the night, no, this was a good, _natural_ serenity. Icy mist shrouded the water, pale daylight crept across the snowy planes on the banks; a stark, peaceful contrast to the night that now lay behind us.

Exhausted, Zolya dropped his oars and slumped back on his bench, and that was when I saw the dried blood under his hood. I jumped up and was with him in an instant, despite the pain and fatigue trying to take over my body. His eyes were glassy and his breath was flat, but he gathered the strength to tell me what I already knew deep inside. "There's nothing you can do, Ture," he gasped. "This is beyond the wonders herbs and lichen can work." He grabbed my sleeve and pulled me closer. "But you can't give up now." His voice was as firm as a dying man could muster. "Promise me! Promise you'll make it to the Valley of Thenn, promise you will tell our story. People need to know what happened out here. They need to know, so nobody will ever come here again."

"I promise," I answered, hoping my eyes didn't betray the doubt that I would be able to keep this promise.

Zolya drifted in and out of consciousness for another few hours, and I did what I could to keep him comfortable in that time. Arranged the furs over him, helped him drink from the waterskins, spoke to him whenever he was awake. The sun stood high when he didn't react anymore to my nudges, when I knew I was all alone with my despair.

 

﴾ _____________________________________________________________________________________ ﴿

 

My recollection of what happened after is blurred. I must have fallen asleep or unconcious for a long time as I opened my eyes under an evening sky. Stars sparkled on the ink-black firmament, a light breeze blew, and I spotted a small forest ahead on the southern bank. And it was no longer quiet in this desolation, I realized, I heard the calls of nocturnal birds from the distance. It may seem strange now, but at first it didn't occur to me that there might game. No, my first thought went in a very different direction. I got up, took a fur and sat down next to Zolya. Made sure his eyes, now closed, were still there, before I covered his face.

The landscape slowly changed during my lonesome journey. Open planes turned into hills and mountains, sparse vegetation grew on the banks and I hunted with the makeshift spear in small groves and forests. I had long lost track of time when I noticed the columns of smoke on the horizon. Maybe I had traveled on the Nameless River for a few days, maybe weeks. All that matters now is that I kept my promise.

 

The Thenn were cautious and suspicious when they found me on the dinghy, barely able to speak and accompanied by a dead body. But once they had inspected the corpse and found neither bite marks nor any parts missing, they offered me shelter and food in their hillside settlement. Their magnar, Snisi, a short, big-bellied man, even let me build a proper funeral pyre for Zolya, and he gave me ink and parchment he had once obtained through a trade. He joked, said he must have been drunk when he accepted this offer since none of his people had use for it.

I wrote down everything I remembered while I recovered. It was comforting to know that nobody in this village could read or write, the secret that I was one of the 'savages who eat people' was safe on these sheets of parchment. I told Snisi that I had deserted from the Night's Watch, asked him to pass the letter to them, should he get the chance. An apology to the lord commander, I claimed, and Snisi knowingly nodded. I doubt my letter will ever reach the Wall, and it will probably be for the better.

 

By nightfall I will leave this village. I've told Snisi that I'll go home, that I belong south of the Wall with my people. He promised me provisions for the long march, but I could see in his eyes that he questioned my wits. If he knew my true intentions, he might try to prevent me from leaving or send men after me once I'm gone. Poor, good-natured savage, he wouldn't understand that I can never go back, that can't live amongst people any longer.

I can't stay here, can't bear to see their blissful ignorance, their placid lives when I know what lingers in the long nights of winter. And I can't live on Skagos anymore either, not on this island of strangers, where ignorance wears a different face. For thousands of years they believed they have the blood of giants, thought nothing could challenge their strength. No words I know can change this belief. They won't understand that we should tremble before what lurks in the depths of eternal winter. Their intrepidity will be their downfall, but it won't be mine.

From stone I came and to stone I'll return. I'll head for the peaks of the Frostfangs, find a place where I can be alone with the dreadful truth in those mountains. I have survived, I have adapted. And I will remain where the coldest winds blow.


End file.
